The Big Red Tractor
Many of the days of my youth were spent driving a Farmall H. 12 hours a day during planting season, my sister and I would plow and disc with that tractor and a VAC Case. They were both smaller tractors, rated for a two bottom plow. How I longed for a Farmall M which would pull a three bottom plow.
Later I would help my father-in-law and he had a fleet of F-20’s and F30’s. These were mostly specialty tractors with a mounted mower on one, and a mounted cultivator on the other, that she left on year round. But he also had a Farmall M and a Farmall Super M, which was used for a much smaller farm. When my wife’s folks had an estate sale, I thought that the tractors would go for more money but I think the F 20’s sold for $500 each.
In the 1830’s several people were experimenting with a binding machine, that would cut wheat and oats. At that time it was cut with a cradle or a scythe and all the grain was loaded onto a cart. The binding machine would cut the grain with a sickle bar, a reel would knock it on a platform and a man would sweep it off with a rake, leaving a bundle on the ground. More men would come along and tie each bundle, then put them in shocks.
In 1930 Cyrus McCormick formed a company and began manufacturing the McCormick reaper. This had a canvas turning on the platform which would carry the grain to a gathering place where each bundle would be tied with twine, and dropped out in a row. Leaving only to pick them up and put them in shocks.
I have often thought the smartest man in the entire world was the guy that invented the knotter, but he could have been the dumbest. Anytime you see an extension cord it has a knot in it. I still don’t understand how the knotter works. When I was in high school l did custom bailing. You would be sailing along and suddenly find a half dozen untied bails. This required stopping and cleaning out the knotter which was a tangled mess. Then the task of rebaling the he untied bales.
Henry Ford started mass-producing the Fordson tractor in 1918, but it was a death trap. It had very little weight on the front and if you snagged a root with a plow it would flip over backwards. Hundreds of farmers were killed with his tractor. I never really saw one work, but I have heard they were very hard to start.
McCormick Dearing came out with their first tractor in 1920. John Deere came out with their first tractor in 1923. The big big break came in 1921 when an engineer by the name of Bert Benson got an idea for a tractor that would do everything. It was a row crop that could plow, disk and also cultivate. Thus the name farm aII or Farmall. Prior to that they would plow and disk with a tractor, then use a horse drawn cultivator.
The row crop tractor was a tricycle with big tires on the back and two small tires together on the front. Corn was planted in 36-in rows, the front tires between two rows and the back tires straddling two rows. Cultivators were mounted on the front of the tractor so you could see the rows of corn. We cultivated twice, when a corn was several inches high then when the corn was a couple feet high. The second pass would be quite fast and threw the dirt up on both sides of the stalk.
The F series tractors were built from 1923 to 1936. From 36 to 46 they made the letter series, the A,B,C,H and M. In 1946 they came out with the 300 and 400 series. In this series they switched to a six-cylinder engine. John Deere switched from a two cylinder to a six cylinder the exact same year.
Today if you go to a tractor show you will see hundreds of tractors from this era. Everyone had a small farm and every one had a tractor or two. Nowadays all of the farms are pretty much thousands of acres with huge tractors. There are very few farms and few tractors built. The small tractors like we used are compact and four-wheel drive which makes a great deal of sense. These are usually equipped with loaders and can move dirt or do many other jobs. Today the small farms are but in ancient memory
“Those were the days my friend, We thought they never end, We’d sing and dance, Forever and a day”
—James Neuhouser
